want to change the subject.
“What?”
“It’s ten years old.”
“You looked through my medicine cabinet too?”
“I had a headache from banging my head on the wall when you broke into the tower to kidnap me.” I’m making a point.
“Ah. The maid must have missed it.” He’s either missed the point or is ignoring it. “Do you need some now?”
“Would you give it to me?”
“Why not?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
It’s quiet again for a long time before he finally pushes his chair back. “Alec,” he calls out and the soldier who’d brought me upstairs earlier appears out of nowhere.
“Sir.”
Cristiano stands. “Take Ms. De La Cruz upstairs,” he says without warning.
I feel my face pale, the blood draining.
Alec nods, not quite looking at me but waiting for me to get up.
Cristiano turns to me again and he looks like a giant from where I’m seated. Without another word to me, he takes the bottle of whiskey and disappears down another corridor.
7
Cristiano
I don’t look at my mother’s portrait when I pass it, but turn the corner into a darker corridor. I make my way to my study thinking about what Scarlett said. That I have my mother’s eyes. A strange comment to make, I think, especially from her.
Once inside, I close the door. The desk lamp is on. I set the whiskey bottle down, pull my sweater over my head, and sit before pouring another into a glass Lenore left on the desk. She worked for us before, too, and has been living with her family for the ten years since the massacre. She was one of the few people who knew Dante and I were alive.
I took three bullets during the attack. Two to my torso, one to my head. They’d mistaken me for a soldier or I’m sure I would be dead now. No execution style killing for me. But I did watch from my place on the bloody marble floor that mom loved so much. I remember how cold it felt, even in the July heat. How that small, inconsequential detail stood out.
My older brother and father were already injured when they brought them in. My mother had been seated in her favorite chair. I watched the tears slide down her face as her husband and sons were made to kneel in a line facing her. Michael, the heir to the throne. Luca and Gianni just kids, scared and trying hard not to cry. The soldier they had mistaken for me, my best friend Jonah. My sister Elizabeth they killed in her room. Lenore’s granddaughter, Mara, is the one body we didn’t recover.
My family must have thought I was already dead, and I guess I was. Bleeding out while Marcus Rinaldi, the leader, Angel and Diego De La Cruz and their army of soldiers stood in our house, desecrated it, bloodied our floors.
They killed Michael first. Bullet to the back of the head while my mother watched. While we all watched. Even injured, he was a threat.
I think, though, that it was a blessing for him given what followed.
Fuck.
I forgo the tumbler and bring the bottle to my lips, forcing down big gulps of burning liquid even though my throat has closed up. Even though it feels like I’m already choking as sweat coats my forehead.
Opening the drawer, I take out the machinery. I made it myself, my home tattooing kit of sorts. I’m not half bad when I’m not drunk. But my tattoos aren’t meant to be pretty. They’re meant to never let me forget what happened. Never forget those who betrayed us. Those who will be made to pay.
Not that I need a reminder for that. My memory is fine now. Intact from the moment I woke up after almost six years in a coma. I just can’t remember anything before. Well, apart from that night.
I set the bottle down and take out the disinfecting wipes to clean the spot on my chest where the names Diego and Angel De La Cruz are written. My reaper’s list. I will reap the lives of every single person named. I’m a little more than half-way through.
For a moment my mind wanders to what happens then. After I’m finished. I don’t see a future after that, though. I’ve never even tried to imagine one. When the last name is crossed off, I’ll be done with anything having to do with this life, this world.
Cleaning the space that will be tattooed and then cleaning the needle itself, I get to work, the little